WTF

Skipping ahead, will go back and fix the blog later.  For now, great family photos! El Jefe's successful finish in Queretaro! Rudi and darling son Sammi, who visit us every year in Queretaro! Rudi, Sammi and K Julio yah baby The annual smokie smokie picture.  Love Geezer's smile in this one. The whole enchilada!  Tonio, Geezer, Rene, Stewie, K, Bimbo

These blog entries are pretty rough; I don't know how I used to articulately blog when I was young (i.e. 2006) AND race AND party!   I got up around 7am, which wasn’t too bad, and had a WTF moment when a guy banged on my door at 7:10am and I was in scanty PJs and he said he needed to check the mini-bar.  Ummm, okay.  He did and he left.  I don’t know, I don’t ask, I just keep rolling! I got to the truck and Rene said, “Where you been?”  I was 2 minutes late.  I said, “You said 8am,” and he said, “I said 7:30am.”  Umm, okay, just keep rolling.  So Rene, Bimbo, Tonio and I headed for the mountains to meet the race car at service.  It was a long morning climbing several mountain passes in the rain and fog that were nearly 9,000 feet in elevation.   The temperature was a perfect 72 when we left Veracruz and now we were a wet, cold 56 in the mountains. The guys listen to fantastic music and for that I am grateful.  My favorite was sort of a techno tune that went,”LIVE

Day 0 arrived and we got up early to get out to the start of the 5 km speed stage to watch everyone.  It was a long commute through morning rush hour traffic in Veracruz; it took us maybe 1-1/2 hours to get out there.  We stopped at two speed bumps a couple of hundred yards before the start, which was cool because everyone had to stop next to us for the topes (speed bumps) and we could cheer them on and get photos. A school was in front of the topes and some of the kids were outside but most were behind the gate, lined up watching the cars for over an hour and shouting and being funny and unruly.  I asked the kids that were out, “Estan en el carcel?”  (Are they in jail?) And they all laughed.  I asked, “Ninos malos?” (Bad kids?) And they laughed again and said, yes, they are the bad kids and we are the good kids!  A group of about 15 young teenaged boys swarmed around me, practicing their English and one by one, asking to pose in a photograph with me, then giggling.  One asked me i

Okay, after 3 days of not blogging, I caught up on my words in the truck but didn't proof them so here it goes! A couple of weeks ago Gerie AKA Yeri Bledsoe let me know that there had been a rule change, when, I don’t know, but they now only allow 3 people to rotate in/out of the car instead of 4, like we used to do. The irony of it is that after several years of riding in the service truck, I am finally ready to navigate again. And the day I received my new race suit in the mail, Yeri emailed to say I was out of luck.  Other folks said not to worry, that I would be able to get into the car but I accepted that I might not be able to race, but I would still bring all of my equipment and be ready. When I landed in Veracruz Geezer said he had talked to one of the LCP staff and she said I could race.  I was super excited and also a bit nervous, just because it has been a while and El Jefe is a radically different and faster car than it was in 2007 when I last navigated in it.